31 million TSLA shares are currently held short, which represents somewhere in the region of 20% of the non-insider shares. (Yahoo finance says 38% of the float, so I guess it depends how many shares you consider freely available on the market).

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest

Petrodollar players doubling-down?

There are some reasonable bets here. Russia has a vested interest in climate change... their biggest liability is cold and ice, a rise in sea level and 5 degree bump in average temps would give them a much bigger role in agriculture and shipping. Add that to the petrodollars from selling their oil reserves and you've got a game changer for them economically.

China probably loses at least temporarily in the runaway climate change event due to destroyed cropland and refugees. The U.S. has exposure on both sides so it's a little more moot for us. We'll lose quite a lot of biodiversity, and may take a big hit to agriculture but we're banking petrodollars and have so much upside when people move to virtual reality we'll be fine. If we were horribly exposed Dems/Reps wouldn't be split on the issue, as clueless as they are.

And of course there are the Saudis and corporate/investment petro interests you allude to.

Russia/Saud/Exxon vs China with U.S. on the sidelines... not sure who wins there.

I really hope we can transition to sustainable energy, but there are big players that stand to gain from delaying it until the reserves are burnt. It's not a bet I would take but I understand why people would bet on there being plenty of feet sticking out to trip up Tesla and co.

Isn't the time to short a stock when there is too much positive sentiment? I would never short stocks because I don't believe in timing the market, but if I were to, I wouldn't seek out stocks with overall negative sentiment as those would seem to have the most upside.

Yes and no.

At the end of the day, stock prices are moved by demand/supply of the shares themselves. Whether or not there's demand depends on sentiment.

Positive sentiment is often an excellent signal that the emperor has no clothes. Most people will ignore what they can see with their own eyes if everyone around them seems to see something different.

There's this guy named Jim Chanos...